Chileans Want State Copper Back

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Latin News press / Prensa Latina

Santiago de Chile, Jul 12 (Prensa Latina) Chilean political and social organizations collected thousands of signatures to support a demand to re-nationalization copper, the main source of wealth in the country, which is in the hands of transnational consortiums.

Miguel Avalos, secretary general of the Defense Committee to Recover Copper, said in an event in Plaza de la Constitucion that by nationalizing this red metal 36 years ago, President Salvador Allende prioritized interests of the country.
>
In 2006 foreign companies profited 26 billion dollars, funds that could have been used to solve serious problems in the country, such as improving the health system, education and jobs, he added.



Read more: http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={63DD6E1B-3074-4A5F-A2DB-FD86F74B5839})&language=EN

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About time too.

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. What?! And undo all the work that Pinochet did?

Scandalous.

[dipsydoodle]

2. You sure you didn't mean all the work

that Kissinger did.

Old news but still valid :
AR) NEW YORK -- The secret government files on Chile, which the Clinton Administration says will be opened to the Spanish prosecutor of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, will prove a major embarrassment for Henry Kissinger, the American most tied to the U.S.-assisted plot to the 1973 overthrow the elected government of President Salvador.
They will show how, in the months and years following the 1973 coup, Kissinger covered up U.S. information about atrocities in Chile and sought to persuade Pinochet that the U.S. government did not consider his behavior a major problem.
>
The memorandum describes how Kissinger stroked and bolstered Pinochet, and how, with hundreds of political prisoners still being jailed and tortured, Kissinger assured Pinochet that the Ford administration would not punish him for violations of human rights. Kissinger assured him that he was a victim of Communist propaganda and urged him not to pay too much attention to his American critics.


http://www.albionmonitor.com/9903a/kissingerchile.html

[Judi Lynn]

3. What a shame Pinochet was able to throw away the results of all the hard work

the Allende administration did in arranging compensation to the five major copper companies, paying off their huge debts, and organizing management of this resource for the benefit of Chile.

Nixon surely did "make the economy scream" to get these concessions from the puppet dictator he placed in Allende's office after Allende was destroyed. Hope he enjoyed the hell out of it, with Kissinger and the ugly cancer in a uniform, Pinochet.

From the article:

The union leader told Prensa Latina that nevertheless, more than 70 percent of Chilean copper is now in foreign hands after a law granting mining concessions.
(snip)

If you arrange torture of thousands of people, and delight in throwing them out of airplanes into the ocean, rivers, lakes, and breaking their bodies on the mountaintops, you, too, can look as evil as Pinochet!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This huge step would be a unifying measure which would have a tremendous effect at several levels for the people of Chile. Sure hope they overcome the handicap Pinochet handed them when he privatized something he should have NEVER touched. It wasn't really his to steal and pass out to his cronies.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Anaconda:

1) a reptile that squeezes the life out of its prey

2) an American copper mining company

[Vidar]

5. Amen to that.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Absolutely! They are death to the poor who must work for them, but beneficial to their stockholders.

Quick google grab:

Even when the full extent of the torture and executions in Chile were well known, the US government sought to integrate the Pinochet regime into international business circles.

Probably no figure more personalised the cruelty of the Pinochet regime than the head of its secret DINA police force, Manuel Contreras.

Previously classified documents now confirm that, not only was Contreras on the CIA payroll, but that when he came to Washington during the height of human rights abuses, the US state department had specific tasks for him.

"Contreras was also asked to check in with Anaconda{Copper} and General Motors to encourage them to resume operations in Chile."
(snip)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/chile/story/0,,1038615,00.html



Manuel Contreras, Contreras with Pinochet



Chuquicamata,the world's largest open
pit copper mine, owned by Anaconda.

[Cleita]

14. Anaconda doesn't exist anymore, as it was bought out in

a merger with some oil company, I believe Exxon, if I remember correctly, but my father worked for them most of his life. I never realized how awful they were until I started meeting some locals from Butte, Montana who informed me very well as to how reptilian they were.

Oh yes, when my father retired after forty four years, he got a small pension, a gold watch and an industrial induced disease from the toxins he was exposed to that he died from ten years later. When he died, his widow was cut off from his pension, period.

[robcon]

6. Why nationalize?

It makes no sense. Unless, as usual in these cases, the nationalization will allow the politicians even more ability for patronage and corruption.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Patronage, corruption? That doesn't happen here, does it?

Thank God, the right-wing Presidents always are able to show the world, as if it needs instruction, just what the hell a righteous economic system looks like, bless their hearts.

Pure as the driven snow. I fall at their feet in wonder, and in worship. What beauties. What paragons of virtue. You are their faithful servant.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. Nationalization takes the national resource out of the hands of

foreign companies, and keeps that wealth in-country. The foreign companies take the resource, their owners are foreign nationals, their management are foreign nationals, the only natives in the operation are the grunt labor, who the foreign companies see to it are poorly paid. By nationalizing there is a risk of corruption, it is true, but the owners are native, the managers are native, and the workers can have some influence over their own working conditions because they know where the owners and managers live. You're far less likely to exploit the workers if those workers are likely to show up as a mob at your doorstep.

[Cleita]

12. Don't forget the companies build roads and other municipal

improvements. :sarcasm: Another excuse I was given. Nevermind that the roads and improvements are to facilitate the companies' own operations and although the locals in the way of those improvements benefit, it hardly comes from the heart of those companies to return in kind what they are profiting from. The fact is nationalizing the companies would accomplish the same improvements and also return revenues to the treasury to be used for civic improvements in places away from the mining centers.

[Cleita]

11. Bullshit.

This is one of the excuses made by the exploiters of other countries of their resources. The patronage and corruption comes from the foreign companies propping up and bribing their favorite complicit pols and eliminating any nationalistic ones who are more honestly trying to do what is good for their country. Trust me I lived within such a system and know it pretty well.

[Cleita]

10. I didn't know that they were in the process of re privatizing the

copper. Thanks for posting this. They shouldn't denationalize this since the copper was taking under some dirty double dealing back at the end of the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century by American companies. I come from that background and the way I understood it was that the fledgling Chilean government wanted to develop the mining industry in Chile after they won their independence from Spain. Ores, particularly copper have always been mined in Chile since pre-columbian times, however, the new Republic wanted modern operations but didn't have the capital to do so.

They made a deal with various mining operations among them the Guggenheims to have them invest in the project bringing their engineers and modern equipment to develop the mines. The agreement was that those companies would develop the mines, get their profit and investment back from the enterprise and then get out. Like many of our Indian treaties, the contracts were either ignored or there was also the fine print in them. Bribery of public officials to change ownership and other venues made the stranglehold of American companies complete.

By the twenties Guggenheim sold to Anaconda Copper of Butte, Montana who took over several major mines including the giant one in Chuquicamata that rivaled the one in Butte for size and at one time was one of the largest in the world. By the time Allende came into power, two major American companies, Anaconda and Kennecott owned most of the major copper mines in Chile and also many other in other South American companies most notably Peru. The resource was mined for the benefit of the companies and very little returned to the country, which remained struggling and poor.

Allende nationalized the mines because the people of Chile wanted their resources back to benefit the people of Chile. Returning the mines to foreign interest especially American interests is just another part of American foreign policy and hegemony that has to stop in the twenty first century if we are ever to have a national good conscience here. Since I grew up in the mines as one of those Americans, I have heard every reason why Chile should not control their own copper and if you have a week I could go through all of them with you and debunk every one of them, but suffice it to say, Chile needs to kick out American interests and British interests for good and for the good of their country.

Could you post about four salient paragraphs from your link article? They won't let me read without registering.

[Judi Lynn]

13. Great post, Cleita. Simply the best! There's nothing to equal personal experience. n/t

[dipsydoodle]

15. I've had that oddity in the past

Try going in this way : http://www.plenglish.com/Default.asp and then look top'ish right for the link. There were only a few more paras anyway.

Thanks for your contributions to this post.:toast: